Bradley James Weber

Startling Stories for All Ages

Movies

Beware the Gonzo (movie review)

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Went looking to Netflix for the Gonzo doco the other day and found this.

Here’s the plot summary from Wikipedia:

Eddie “Gonzo” Gilman is the head geek at his high school—and determined to do something about it. When Gavin, the popular editor of the school paper, fires him, Eddie obtains revenge by establishing an underground paper of his own. He gains popularity and makes a new friend, Evie Wallace, and it soon gains the attention of the principal, escalating to a bombshell crisis.

The movie was decent; well worth a watch. I may watch it again in a few months. It hit many of the notes that Hunter played: truth, outrage, getting the bastards, and what we like to think of as his total commitment to the cause — whatever it is and damn safety and the consequences. Though I somehow think that the kid in the movie had the greater courage of his convictions. Maybe it’s because he’s in high school and that kind of high-contrast worldview, the absolutism, comes naturally with the age. Or not. I’m still a fairly hard-core absolutist, which can be miserable to live with, sometimes. My wife is a saint.

Still and all, the movie stuck very close to Hunter’s philosophy and the overall Gonzo ethos, if not strictly to Gonzo Journalism.

When watching, keep an eye on how Gillman’s wardrobe evolves throughout the film.

Is this Bat Country?

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It was a nightmare, getting out of L.A. . . . The desert would be bad enough all by itself. 
     Something big and batlike swooped through the tunnel of lights and was gone. He ignored its passage. Five minutes later it made a second pass, this time much closer, and he fired a magnesium flare. A black shape, perhaps forty feet across, was illuminated, and he gave it two five-second bursts from the fifty-calibers, and it fell to the ground and did not return again. 
     To the squares, this was Damnation Alley.

 

Damnation Alley is a really awful book with an impossible cult following. Published in 1969, it went on to be made into an even worse film staring George Peppard, Jan-Michael Vincent, and Jackie Earle Haley which as gained an even stronger cult following than the book.

How I acquired first-hand knowledge of these matters is a story too horrible to tell, at least right now. All will be revealed when I’ve made my millions and adoring fans hang on my every word. Meanwhile, I have to wonder if this shitty little book was in some way an influence on Hunter’s conceptualization of Bat Country and the fearful run from L.A. to L.V.

Zelazny’s novel is a post-apocalyptic version of the 1925  “Great Race of Mercy” — when 20 sled dog teams raced 1085 miles to bring diphtheria antitoxin to Nome, Alaska. This time it’s a suicide run from the nation-state of California across the nuke-ravaged, monster-filled wasteland with some Haffikine anti-serum — because they gots the plague way over in Boston.

Leading the a three-car team of recidivist goons is Hell Tanner, last of the West Cost Hell’s Angels. (Seriously. I wouldn’t make that up.)  Tanner is a hard core sonofabitch who’s been in jail for any number of dirty deeds — including smuggling candy to the Mormons. The carrot for Tanner and the rest of the screw heads to make the trip is that they get full pardons for their crimes. . . .

This plot synopsis is somewhat beside my point.

Like with B. Traven’s Death Ship, John Bainbridge’s Super-Americans and a few other texts I’ve run across, Damnation Alley feels like it might have suggested something to Hunter and in some way informed his writing.

Everybody knows about the influence of Fitzgerald and Hemingway and Donlevy on the good doctor’s work. But Hunter’s approach to reading seems to have been , in the best sense, a shotgun affair. There is a list of books in a 2006 Harper’s article by William Kennedy (that I can’t link to because you need to subscribe in order to view it), that only hints at the breadth and depth of Thompson’s literary tastes.  One might be inclined to think Hunter was indiscriminate, reading at random, but that doesn’t seem to fit. Omnivorous, certainly — with a purpose.

Traven’s writing in Death Ship has amazing rhythms and a personal, wrong guy/wrong place/wrong time sensibility mirrored in some of Hunter’s best work; Super-Americans is about Texas being the last bastion of the American Dream; Damnation Alley describes the desolation, danger, gila monsters, and high desert weirdness between Barstow and Vegas.

What else is out there he might have read and pulled from?

It’s time to finish Gonzo Republic to see if Stephenson’s worthy examination of Thompson’s writing and themes includes any intertextual analysis of the canon.

Rum Diary Soundtrack Outclasses Film

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I’m having the strangest feeling of deja vu

Ninety percent of Christopher Young’s swinging soundtrack has been on high rotation in both my car and the writing cave — very impressive considering the track list is twenty-four songs long.

First, a little explanation for anyone who doesn’t regularly listen to movie soundtracks: the background music, the strings or guitars or horns or whatever providing an emotional bed and/or reinforcement to whatever is happening on the screen is written specifically for those several seconds or minutes of film, then taking cues from what happens next, the composer will truncate a melody or execute an abrupt change in tone. Listening to soundtracks by even the best movie composers (Elfman, Zimmer, Shore, Steiner, Howard, Korngold, Stalling, etc.) can be a disjointed and jarring experience.

Young (Preist, The Fly, Rounders, Spider-Man 2) on the other hand, expanded The Rum Diary‘s themes, beats, and incidental music into complete songs. Each one is fully realized  with a wonderful feel for the era’s music. Put them up against Ultralounge’s Bossa Novaville or Mambo Fever and you’ll see just how close Young gets.

Of the twenty-four tracks, a mere three fail to reach my ears:

1) “Volare” by Dean Martin — the only oldie on the list and a song which sets up a false expectation as it opens the film. It doesn’t come off as ironic, which I’m willing to bet was the point. Another one of Young’s fantastic tracks would have been better.

3) “Suckfish and Snake” — this is, in and of itself, really a fine track. Lots of great rhythms, heavy on sax and Hammond B3 . . . I just can’t stand scat singing. I get it, as a style and technique, but I can’t listen to it.

I hate scat singing. There, I said it. Burn me in effigy.

24) “The Mermaid Song” — there are two versions on the soundtrack:  an instrumental and one that is sung. The instrumental version has a wonderful music box air to it and is really something sweet and special. And and while Patti Smith’s vocals are fine, the lyrics are nothing much to sing about.

Like the O, Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack, Young’s Rum Diary music should develop the following it deserves.  If this soundtrack doesn’t get airplay on jazz stations, there is something seriously wrong with the way it’s being marketed.

And when you hear some of these songs in commercials and trailers for other movies in a few months, don’t be surprised.

MP3s are available for download at most online outlets. The physical CD looks to be available sometime just before x-mas.

Rum Diary Soundtrack

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The fine folk handling Lakeshore Records’ PR assured me a copy of the new soundtrack will be delivered as soon they received a link from the label.

That was last Monday, the 17th.

The soundtrack hits digital release on the 25th.

Guess I’d better get back on the wire.

By the looks of the track list and the tidbits in press releases, jazz drummer Christopher Young’s score, combined with the pop songs he’s selected, are set to capture the 1960s island feel.

When I hear anything, I’ll let you know.

Meanwhile, THE RUM DIARY opens in theaters Friday, October 28th. At least two venues in the Chicago area have Thursday night-Friday morning screenings starting at 12:01AM. Check your local theater listings.

UPDATE (10/25/11): The word is that the promo link is still not available from Lakeshore Records. Which is strange because the digital copy went on sale yesterday at Amazon.

It’s a Scooby-Doo mystery to me.

Rum Diary Poster

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Of all the things that could have been done to make this a really intriguing poster and they went with this.

What a disappointment.

Analyzing the gross and numerous failures in concept and design would be pointless, mostly because the people concerned (i.e., producers and publicists) clearly don’t give a shit.

Noticeably absent from the poster is any mention of the novel or its author. This may seem counter-intuitive, but that could work in the film’s favor.

Most people these days who know anything about Thompson are either a) familiar enough with the man and his work to know it’s more than the some of it’s parts, or b) know the man and his work by reputation only — and that’s the way they like it. (Because let’s face it: anyone impressed by the more outré aspects of the good doctor’s life and writing would have found out more.)

For the former group, the title alone is enough to get them in the theaters. For the latter group, for whom Doc’s antics were an immediate turn-off, Depp’s name and the mystery of the poster might lure them in.

It’s a crap-shoot, really. And we won’t know it’s success or failure until the box office returns are in.